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Pseudoscience
of Animals and Plants
A Teacher's Guide to Non-Scientific Beliefs
by
John Richard Schrock
LOOK
AT REAL SCIENCE RESEARCH AND HOW IT WAS DONE
Present
some original experimental history that reveals how real
human beings with human shortcomings worked on interesting
puzzles until they found solutions that are today's science.
This history also often reveals the limitations of that
understanding.
Real
science is also considerably different from what is purveyed
in textbooks. Students who hear for the first time a scientist
present a paper in a scientific meeting are surprised to
hear researchers actually argue! All of those set values
in the text actually have some “wiggle” and there is a cutting
edge of discovery that is constantly refining our understanding
and providing exceptions to nearly every general rule!
Students can only perceive these important aspects of science
if you introduce them to some original investigations or
elaborate debates on real science occurring today. Scientific
American articles reporting research from before the
1970s and summary articles on current research in Science
News will help provide the flavor of real science, too.
Textbooks will not.
Math
-
Read text sample division problems and work out the assignment
- Teacher explains division
problems and talks through examples
- Audio-visuals
animate division problems in diverse and entertaining
ways
- Teacher
has class partition to become part of a division problem
- Student
riding in freight truck has to calculate gas/diesel
mileage and
determine amount
of fuel for trip
across desert
English
Vocabulary
-
Read "Red Badge of Courage"
- Teacher explicates
text
- Students view
movie version of book
- Students enact
roles from book
- Student
sent to participate
in one day's Army exercise
Music
- Student reads
sheet music to Beethoven's "Ode To Joy"
- Teacher
"sight reads" do-do-re-mi-mi-etc
- Student listens
to tape of Beethoven's "Ode To Joy"
- Student watches
TV performance of Beethoven's "Ode To Joy"
- Student
attends actual concert and fully observes or performs
in the concert
Science
- Read
about leaves and how to identify them
- Teacher
explains how to identify leavges
- Audio-visuals
show leaf characters and students drill/practice
- Actual
leaves used to see characters and students drill/practice
- Students
on outward bound solo trek must select good plants
as food to survive
Social
Studies
-
Read about U.S. Court and penal system
- Teacher
explains judicial system
- Film
"Twelve Angry Men" dramatizes jury decision
ways
- Student
role-plays the steps in convicting a criminal
- Student
attends real court sessions and spends night in protected
cell
USE
REALITY IN EVERYDAY TEACHING
Minimize
abstractions (such as wordy statements of science concepts)
and keep students involved with real lab and field work
so what you do talk about will be “meaningful.” These real
experiences provide opportunity for real interaction, they
test true, and the student realizes that this phenomenon
can lead to real consequences.
Minimizing
abstractions means moving away from the common practices
used in the classroom (reading, talking, showing slides
and movies) and using real lab and field activities. The
goal is to practice students in securing real information
from the real world. (Be careful, not all “hands
on” activities deal with the real world.)
Students
who currently learn science as a written body of facts also
correctly detect that the "facts" change over
time. We are actually teaching these students to view controversies
as “book thumping” contests where one authority is challenging
another. Real science has nothing to do with “authority.”
Students
also realize that all the abstract classroom methods are
subject to fraud. Texts, pictures, videotapes... all are
easily contrived to show what an author or propagandist
wishes to show. The real phenomenon on the other hand has
all the truth in it for investigation. A good science student
will develop a healthy disrespect for anything that is not
based on direct evidence.
REQUIRE
“REASONING” IN COURSEWORK
Force
students to use reason to figure out the world around them
by not giving them the “correct” answer. Set up
the problem and let them solve it, and help them maintain
a rigorous and reasoned discussion.
Reason
is developed by practice. The sun may “appear” to rise
in the east and set in the west, so observation of the real
world alone does not insure the development of a “scientific
attitude.” By asking questions and pointing out additional
student experiences, a teacher can help students recognize
that this is an “apparent motion” of the sun better explained
as due to the earth turning.
GENERAL
CLASSROOM STRATEGIES
The
following checklist may help some teachers steer away from
science as an authoritarian body of knowledge:
-Use
real specimens wherever possible to illustrate concrete
objects. This applies to all levels. There is some educational
mythology about abstractions being “better” for older students–it
is unproved.
-Use
real laboratory experiences where possible to demonstrate
real interactions and real consequences. Open (not cookbook)
experiments and dissections are vital to provide the student
with “meaning” for those terms and concepts and to sharpen
the student’s powers of observation.
-Use
field experiences wherever possible, minimizing the carry-along
social subculture of the classroom and again focusing the
student on the phenomena in nature.
-Do
not rely heavily on dictionaries and encyclopedias
to define terms for students; do not reply to questions
with “Look it up,” but rather “Look and see” in the lab
or field. If the reality shows one result and the book
another, the book loses!
-Avoid
pressing students to make up their minds on an issue in
the absence of real and first-hand evidence or before they
have engaged in reasoned discussion with others; this usually
results in the perpetuation of societal prejudices and forms
a bad intellectual habit.
-Focus
on students’ real experiences as a base for definition;
capitalize on those students with first-hand experiences
and encourage them to share what they know. (Note: Courts
only recognize first-hand testimony and reject hearsay evidence).
-Constantly
point out the difference between the value of information
from persons who are “book learned” but not testable witnesses
(as teachers often are) and persons with first-hand experience
who are testable witnesses.
-Point
out cases where two students perceive the same picture,
event, or situation differently and note how our previous
experiences actually change the way we see things; capitalize
on the perspective of foreign-born students in class.
Next
Section:
- preposterous plants
- twenty "science attitudes"
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